Like most everyone in the United States, we spent Monday afternoon checking out the eclipse. As the eastern most point in the United States, we got to see if later than the mainland, and it wasn’t “totality”, but it was still pretty cool. We watched the start of it by the National Park Dock where they had a special viewing telescope set up for sharing. Then we strolled over to Wharfside, hung out in front of Joe’s Rum Hut and caught some really cool shadows on the wall and the beach.

One of the storms I mentioned in last week’s blog made it up to Texas this week, and while it’s calm off of Africa now, that can all change in 24 hours. We have a container arriving this week which holds the rest of the windows and doors along with some Durock. Larry is cranking on the custom millwork and should be ready to ship it all down here in the next 4 weeks.

Here’s the cedar closet inserts along with the current contents of the 40′ container which will hold all the pieces for kitchen, bedrooms, closets, vanities, entertainment centers, counter tops, vanity sinks and custom shelving for the bathrooms.

Now that the first four villas are in the home stretch, its time to finish off the main entrance. Wayne excavated about 6′ down on the “low” side of the entry drive and the crew formed a 32″ wide footing for the retaining wall which will support the drive even in the worst of downpours.

Bruce, Sheraz and the guys poured the footer on Wednesday and began forming the stairs and entry walkway into poolside villa #1 as well as the main retaining wall for the first section of road.

Here’s 1/2 of the retaining wall forms in place. Pour this on Wednesday, backfill on Thursday or Friday and this section of road way is ready for final grading and flat work.

Poolside Villa #2 is getting a coat of Total Wall applied to it’s belly and the window and door installation is now complete.

We caught just enough of a break in the weather to get a bit more Total Wall applied to the tower, and the crew also started with the finishing plaster coat for the interior.

Interior ready for ceiling and the final finishing coat of plaster is starting to be applied. The interior doors are in transit from Brazil and should be here in mid to late September.

We did get a bit of surprise on Saturday. We went by the site and these two beauties were sitting right in front of the entrance. As it turns out, they had heard about the view and wanted to check it out for themselves. And, like everyone else who has seen it, they were blown away.

Greggson also stopped by the site this week to install “midnight black” window tinting on the wine cellar door. Apparently wine likes to stay in a dark, dark place.

Our excavator was pinned on the lower portion of the site for several weeks, but Wayne is catching up fast for the projects on the top of the site. A bit more cleaning up by the pool patio area, and we’ll be ready to take the final steps to get the pool structurally completed.

On the lower portion of the site, the 1BR Honeymoon suite is structurally complete, and we’re waiting another week before the floor supports can be removed. Then, onto interior framing!

The home office and laundry room are now complete, and after the crew puts down some “weeping” pipe in gravel to route away water that builds up behind the structures, Wayne will backfill the rear of the buildings.

Finally, here’s your weekly dose of cuteness. A girl and her dog, along with the girl enjoying her bottle, a good book and a view.